


'Dear fucking diary'- the diary of John Watson, Aged 17

by AliceA



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Diary/Journal, Teen Angst, Teen John Watson, Teen Sherlock, Teenlock, au sherlock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-03
Updated: 2014-07-15
Packaged: 2018-02-03 07:41:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1736678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliceA/pseuds/AliceA
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A troubled teenage John Watson is sent to The Mannor, an all-male boarding school/correctional facility. While there, he meets a strange young man named Sherlock who has been sent their for another reason. They become unlikely friends and together they try their best to make it through the trials of male adolescence, solving puzzles along the way.  <br/>STRONG LANGUAGE</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone
> 
> Going to try a multi-chapter once again in a different way.
> 
> Diary bitch!
> 
> Please comment if you like the style so far or tell me what you don't like.
> 
> Thank you for the continued love.
> 
> :D

8th September 2013                                                                                                                                                                 1:24 am

 

Day 1

 

Dear fucking diary

 

I hate that I have to write this. A diary. A FUCKING DIARY. What am I, a Disney princess? Dear diary none of the boys in school like me. Dear diary I think I have a crush on my teacher. Dear diary you can go such my balls!

*sigh*

I hate it here already. It hasn’t even been 24 hours since I first set foot in this place, but it know I hate it. It’s cold, it’s wet and it’s about 5000 miles from civilisation. Overall, it is my nightmare reincarnate. I know why I’m here; I fucked up, I know I did. But this place, THIS is not the answer to my problems. A juvenile detention centre or some kind of work scheme might be more beneficial, but no, apparently getting a decent education will be much more ‘advantageous’ for my future. Advent- _fucking-_ tageous.

What a crock of shit.

Instead I am being subjected to a neo-fucking-nazi Boarding school for the socially deranged. I say Hogwarts has less hopelessly obscure misfits than this place, and that place was run on magic, had three-headed dogs, giant spiders, talking snakes and Hermione turned into a fucking CAT.

It is bullshit. BULLSHIT I tell you!   

Everything is soooo bloody structured too. Just LOOK at this fucking thing!

 

6.45am - Students rise

6.55am–7.55 am - Morning Study

7.50am-8.15 am - Breakfast

8.45am-12.30 pm - Morning Classes

12.30pm-1.30 pm - Lunch

1.30pm-3.40 pm - Afternoon Classes

5.00pm - Tea

6.00pm-9.30 pm - Evening Study

10.15pm - Students go to their rooms

10.30pm - Lights out

On Wednesdays school ends at 12.45 p.m. to facilitate involvement in sports (all boys are expected to participate in some sporting activity).  

 

 

This is utter horseshit…

6:45am start. The BIRDS aren’t even awake at that time of the morning. Oh yeah. I listened for them this morning. Not a PEEP out of them. And do you know why? Because they were still asleep in their cosy beds (or nests), where I should have been. But no, I should be so lucky to obtain such luxuries.

Instead I was forced out of my bunk and this unmerciful hour of the morning and with only 10 minutes of daylight in my eyes, they throw books in front of me. I can barely say my name 10 minutes after I wake, never mind start to learn French verbs or Trigonometry or the Carbon cycle, or whatever the fuck it was, I couldn’t understand it so it may as well have been written in Ancient Greek. OH WAIT, they DO teach Ancient-fucking-Greek here!

We are drop-outs, junkies and rejects, why would any of US need Ancient Greek!

Oh and you know what the best part of this is, get a load of this… compulsory fucking sports.

“All boys are expected to participate in some sporting activity.”

I have died and gone to hell. Seriously considering shooting myself in the foot to get out of it.

I don’t play sports. Never have, never could. My uncle once told me was ‘vertically’ impaired. Thanks for that, Uncle Frank. But he’s right. I can’t kick a ball, I can’t shoot a basket. Hopefully they will only ever play baseball or rounders, in which case they won’t let me play because of my conviction. Yeah, that might work.

Also I wasn’t allowed to bring ANYTHING with me. No comic books, no DS, no magazines, no DVD’s, nothing that could be categorised at fun. But they let me bring my books, so I suppose that’s ok.

They don’t know that I brought my iPod and charger with me. They can’t take my music. I’d let them take my limbs before I would let them take my music from me. Pseudo-fascist-anti-establishmentarianism. Something. something. Fuck the man!

Oh god... I need to sleep.

Right. I don’t know how to sign off on a diary because I’m the only one who is ever going to see this. It's like writing a letter to myself from myself. Ingenious.

So how should I sign off?

Oh maybe with a quote. Delores does love her quotes and she repeats them to me often enough. Well in all fairness, I actually like her quotes. They are like the best of the English language rolled into neat little phrasings.  

So for tonight I will end with this.

 

“But Fate does iron wedges drive,

And always crowds itself betwixt.”

― Andrew Marvell

 

Until tomorrow. Good night.

~~John Watson~~

(Dammit)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 2- John tries to figure out what the fuck is wrong with the place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again
> 
> Thanks a mill for the love
> 
> Let me know in the COMMENTS if you like it... or not :) 
> 
> I won't bite... 
> 
> hard  
> XD

9th September 2013                                                                                                                   10:35 pm

Day 2

 

Dear fucking diary

I knew it. They are trying to reintroduce Capital punishment back into the legal system. Oh those boys are clever! Instead of chopping somebody’s head off, they are incorporating three hour chemistry labs and reading chapters of Ulysses allowed in class to the curriculum.

This is an utter joke. How could anyone be so cruel?

Apart from the chemistry and the James Joyce, I can’t seem to figure out what exactly is wrong with this place.

For the sake of writing history and memories for myself (which good old Delores will still probably be trying to help me forget when I’m 104), The Mannor is huge grey castle-like building which was converted in what must have been the frickin’ middle ages into a revered public school for those who have been rejected from ever other state-owned school in the country.

‘A school for lost causes’, that’s what Mike calls it anyway. God I never thought I would say it, but I actually kind of miss Mike. Or maybe it’s that I miss my freedom. You’re not allowed to just go and do your own thing. Not that there is anything to do here. The nearest village is over three miles away so you can’t exactly pop out for a box of fags.

Anyway, they school itself has been painted in beautifully dull tones of beige and ‘bitter chocolate’. It is marvellously melancholic.

Being in our final year, turns out we have been granted the use of a form-room, like a play area/rehabilitation centre. The room is a dirty cream colour with years’ worth of faded graffiti drawn onto the walls.

On our small 30 second breather from class today I read the faded yet still clearly visible words just beside a large wooden bookshelf, despite the efforts the cleaners went to scrub the Sharpie poetry off the walls.

I laughed actually. Some of it was pretty inventive. But most of it was just dirty sex puns, ‘call me for a good time’s’ and crudely drawn penises with phenomenal amounts of semen squirting from the tip.

I suppose anyone in here that does manage to cum would have phenomenal amounts of semen squirting from them. In open dormitories and communal bathrooms there is very little room for…well…alone time. Which for me isn’t so much a problem but it’s a same sex school.

Oh yeah. There is another nugget of information I forgot to include before, it’s a SAME-SEX SCHOOL. It’s wonderful really. Every class is a literal cock-fest and the female teachers are so old that they could easily be mistaken as Theoden possessed as Saruman in _The Two Towers_.

 _Not_ the easiest thing to fap to.

Saying this, I think it’s the people that really just make the place a bit more tolerable. They are just so… well… I can’t even put my finger on it.

Strange isn’t even the word I’m really looking for, they’re just so different from home.

They are strange, don’t get me wrong. But they are strange in a ‘Beavis and Butthead’ kind of way, rather than in a ‘Ren and Stimpy’ way. It is very easy to tell that NO ONE wants to be here.

The kids in class literally couldn’t care less about doing well. One of the students mixed too much potassium nitrate into table sugar and it exploded in a small cloud of black smoke. The room had to be evacuated. But instead of letting us on a break, we were sent to the Great Hall to study some more.

I mean, the poor guy nearly went up in flame! But he honestly didn’t do it maliciously. I witnessed the whole thing. He was throwing chemicals into a beaker at random yet he was controlled in his actions. He must be some rich kid who went wrong because his parents named him after a Shakespeare character, Shylock or something. Our eyes locked and he smiled over at me after the explosion, like he had intended it to blow up in his face for the fun of it. 

It is very obvious that this place is a fashion statement for parents to boast about when their friends ask about their ‘troubled’ little boys.

While the boys here don’t give two fucks, they do so almost elegantly. No hoodies or Mohawks here. It’s very hard to truly encapsulate what the boys here are like. They are slackers but they are intelligent, they don’t care about being their but no student has ever failed a single exam apparently. Imagine if Beavis and Butthead wore blazers, monocles and Dubarry shoes. That is as close a description as I can ever get.

 

Anyway I better go to sleep. I think I may fall into a coma, which would work out well because we have fucking ‘expected’ sports tomorrow.

 

This perfectly sums up my day and from no better writer than A C Doyle himself.

“I am somewhat exhausted; I wonder how a battery feels when it pours electricity into a non-conductor?”

― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Dying Detective

 

Until tomorrow and goodnight. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 3- a chance encounter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi Everyone  
> Thanks for reading :)
> 
> let me know if you like it   
> or if i should do something differently ? :)
> 
> :D

10th September 2013                                                                                                                               5:38 pm

Day 3

 

Dear fucking diary

It is official.

I absolutely hate this place. Without a shadow of a doubt this may be Hell on earth. I think I’m going to die. Ok well maybe not die. But it sure fucking feels like it.

Ok I better elaborate.

I broke my arm today playing soccer.

Oh yeah. I’ve been here three days and I BREAK one of my fucking LIMBS. If that is not a sign I shouldn’t be here then I don’t know what it. The nurse said I was lucky that it wasn’t my writing arm, I felt like telling here to go fuck herself with a dildo made from plaster of Paris.

I swear this place is bringing out the worst in me!

Anyway, it all started innocently while we were all out on the football pitch. It a typical horrible and miserable autumn day. The rain bucketed out of the sky and the ground had turned to sludge beneath my running shoes. I remember looking up to the sky, black with thunder and wishing a lightning bolt would shoot through the clouds and smite me where I stood. It was possibly the most miserable I have ever been.

I was standing in defence, I think. I was beside my own teams’ goal post. We had the superior team made up of tall, strong looking young men. They danced over the dirt like gazelles in a safari documentary while I sank knee-deep into the mud like a hippo in a swamp.

I must have looked very majestic indeed. 

They spun and twirled in neat little circles and passed the ball back and forth among themselves, which to be honest suited me fine and dandy because the ball never came down towards me.

Until the last few minutes. 

I was watching the coach flaring his whistle and checking his watch. He was just about to blow the whistle when Rodger, one of the biggest chunks of meat I have ever laid eyes on, ploughed down the pitch towards our goal.

Afterwards I found out that he was sent to The Mannor because he got drunk and punched a priest in the face in front of a full church on his sister’s wedding day. It must have been a glorious sight.  

Anyway as you can imagine, all 6’ 4’’ of him colliding with all 5’ 6’’ of me was like watching a moped trying to fend off a locomotive. Needless to say there was a John-shaped hole imprinted into the mud after fucking Rambo knocked me off my feet and pinned me to the ground under the massive weight of his man-boobs.

So I was escorted up to the nurse who reckons it wasn’t that bad of a break but enough for me to have to wear a cast for two months. Woopdee-fucking-do. I’ll get all my non-existent friends to sign it.

 

But then something strange happened. I had to say all of that before to set the scene for what happened next.

I was walking back from the nurses’ station when a shadowy movement caught my eye down a long narrow corridor. So naturally this idiot here followed the creepy and potentially dangerous shadows.

I got to the end of the corridor and found nothing except some fresh graffiti painted onto the wall.

It was just a simple smiley face painted in bright yellow, a circle, two dots and a curve. But for some reason it actually made me smile. It was so bright in such a dreary place.

Then I turned around and nearly shit my fucking pants.

It was the boy that near set himself on fire in chemistry, just stand between me and the way I had come down the corridor. He was tall and skinny with a mop of black curly hair and big bright eyes. There was something very cheeky yet innocent about him. He didn’t look like he could hurt a fly but when I saw that he had yellow smeared all over his hands, face and clothes, I realised that this guy was definitely playing the puppy-eyes to his advantage.

He didn’t say a word and we stood in awkward silence for a few minutes, well he wasn’t awkward but I must have looked awkward as hell because I was swaying slightly from the painkillers and the cold. He had his ears cocked but his eyes were just looking me up and down, like he was scrutinising every wrinkle of my clothes. I felt like a prize pumpkin at a county fair. 

 

Then he clamped his hands around my mouth and shushed me. Then he dragged me into a small cramped little doorway and pushed me to the wall. I was half a heartbeat away from biting his hand away with the smell of the paint on his hands making me woozy.

In the distance I could hear the sound of someone’s footsteps passing by. Then the strange boy released his suffocating grip on my mouth and stepped back a tiny bit.

He held his hand out like circus performer and introduced himself as Sherlock, although Shylock would nearly have been more plausible that Sherlock.

I can’t remember entirely but the conversation went something like this.

“Hello, I’m Sherlock.” His voice was surprisingly deep considering how mild and blank his face seemed to be.

“I’m John, John Watson. Why did you spray paint the wall?” I asked partly out of curiosity for the act but mostly out of curiosity for the man that put it there.

“Oh the wall was being boring so I decided to give the place a bit of brightening up.”

“The wall was being boring?”

The guy is some sort of nutter, I remember thinking. Then he smirked and shuffled from foot to foot and pulled out a box of cigarettes from his pocket.

“You want one?”

I looked to him and looked to the box.  This guy really was a nutter. Pulling fags out in school and offering to another student he knows jack shit about. But my hands twitched for one anyway. God it has been so long since I had a proper cigarette.

“Don’t worry about getting caught. I know all the night places to smoke in this building. You’re not going to get caught on your third day in the school.”

I have been reasoning it out all day. He wouldn’t have been stupid enough to try and catch me out with paint on his face. And if he had been working for the authorities he wouldn’t have hidden from them only a few minutes beforehand. So I took the chance.

“Yeah, go on. Why not?”

He pulled a big shit-eating smile across his face. I can still see it now.

What a big dork.

So we went up the back passage and slipped into a nearly invisible side passage and up a spiral staircase. We ended up on the roof. It had stopped raining and the roof with spattered in pools of water. We ducked down by the side a big metal generator and lit up.

It was like heaven in my mouth. I almost licked my lips by accident.

 

“So, tell me more about yourself, John Watson.” The strange Sherlock boy asked.

I told him a few basic bits. Where I lived before, a few interests, small insignificant things to fill some conversation.

So I asked him back.

He shrugged his shoulders and spoke with dulled monotony in his voice, the likes you would hear from a computerised voicemail.

“I don’t know what to say without sounding like a dickhead. But my father is the founder of the Holmes estate around London. I lived just outside the greater part of the city in a nice place. Money was never a question so I just spent more and more and more until I had all the designer clothes and books I ever wanted but in the end it was the secret night life that got me and I ended up taking substances I shouldn’t have. Blacked out one night after a particularly hard session of drinking and a few lines ended up in the hospital. They said I had snorted a small but dangerous amount of rat poison in the cocaine. Someone had planted it in my bag for some reason. Might have been a cheap trick or something more dangerous I’m not sure. But anyway, now I am here. And that was two years ago.”

I didn’t know what to say, so said what I would have said if he was one of my own friends.

“You idiot.”

He looked up at me and smirked and for some reason even while I’m writing this now I can feel myself smiling at his big goofy grin.

“When did it happen to you?” he asked after a few seconds. So naturally I asked him what he was taking about. His head tilted to the side like a rubber chicken and his eyebrow rose on one side.

I took a good long drag and held it in my mouth for a few seconds longer than was good for me.

“When were you arrested?”

I had never met this fucker before and he knew more about me than some people knew at home. We just stared at each other before I gave in. I was curious to see how the fuck he knew.

“The beginning of August. They put me into…” and then he cut me off.

“…St. Matthews, judging by the marks on your wrists from where you tried to pull your identity tag off, you were only there for a few weeks because they knew you didn’t belong in there. You are not psychologically damaged. You just snapped at the wrong time. Am I right?”

It was like he was reading it off a script.

“How the flying fuck did you know that?”

Was the little shit reading the records? I got up to leave but he grabbed my good wrist lightly.

“I’m sorry. I can’t help it. I-I can read people in the way some people read tarot cards. It’s very simple once you get the basic mechanics.”

I just looked at him and laughed.

“Whatever man. Thanks for the cigarette.”

I stubbed in out in the rain water and tried to push myself off the ground. Before I could put my good hand to the ground Sherlock had stood up and reached his hand out.

So I grabbed it and he pulled me up.

“No problem. It was nice meeting you.”

I suddenly felt guiltier than I have ever felt in my life for being so marginally cold with the strange lad. 

“It was nice to meet you too” and I smiled like a big cheese ball.

I walked back where we came from and Sherlock called from behind.

“It’s not broken”

I turned and just asked “What?”

“Your arm isn’t broken, it’s just sprained. The nurse wouldn’t know the difference between a tumour and a pimple.”

“And you’re some diagnostic specialist?”

“No. but I’m not as dim-witted as the staff in this place.”

“Why do you say that?” I was becoming genuinely curious about this young Tim Curry like man.

“Because they think we all deserve a second chance.”

Then the strangest silence ever ensued.

“Do we not deserve a second chance?” 

There was no more humour in my voice.

“Some of us have been fighting against it for years. Others just walk right into its path.”

He played the pronoun game and I caught the hook.

“What’s ‘it’?”

He pulled a long drag from his cigarette before flicking it into a puddle.

“Fate, John.”

He smiled a great lopsided smile and walked away along the roof.

I turned back and made my way back here.  

So here I am now.

And why am I recording this in such detail? Because I want to see what he can do in his full power. I am strangely curious about him. If anyone else had said those things I probably would have told them to piss off and walked away, but there was something about this guy that made me believe he could really just read people’s lives off their clothes. If this boy really does have some sort of observational talent, then I am curious to find out how he does it, what his secrets are and what more he might figure out about me.

 

I’m going to go lie down for a bit since we technically have the rest of the day off.

 

I’ll come back with a quotation tomorrow. Currently too tired and groggy to remember something inspiring or useful.

 

Until tomorrow.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 6- settling down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again :)
> 
> Thanks for the love. 
> 
> recommend to a friend :D 
> 
> let me know if you enjoy it or if i should do something different :)

13th September 2013                                                    9:21pm

Day 6

Dear fucking diary

I could say that I was too busy with my studies to write over the last few days, or that I was too busy making friends for myself, but this is my diary and I’m the only one who’s going to read it so why would I bother bullshitting myself.

Today is Saturday.

*insert gospel halleluiah*

One of those mystical days between work and play where we establish long-term life defining traits to carry us through our every day lives. This is where freedom and pleasure collide and where we overcome insecurities, establish family relationships and pursue love interests in those days between days.

 

But not here! Instead I get to fucking STUDY more!

*rips up gospel halleluiah song-sheets*

 

When was the last time you heard a teenager saying “Oh what a beautiful day it is indeed. Looks like the perfect day to stay inside and give myself a migraine memorising Hamlet’s soliloquys.”  

That’s right, NEVER!

God, I really do miss being home on a Saturday. I miss meeting up with Mike and hanging out in the old boat house by the river.

For all the stupid pranks we pulled, or jokes we made there was never any harm in them, or in us. We never meant hurt anyone. No one at all.

Ahem. Anyway.

In the few minutes we are allowed between classes, I usually just head back to the dorm room and hope that no one is there. It’s not that I don’t want to make friends but it’s a bit hard to just walk up to a group of people and just chat away like I’ve always known them. They have their group and they all know the rumours of why I’m here which makes it even harder.

I don’t want to be by myself, it’s just that… well… sometimes people are just too fucking annoying to deal with.

There. I said it.

 

Well let me see.

Did anything fun or exciting happen to me today?

Nothing ever happens to me.

 

 

But I must return to my observations of Sherlock so, the strange boy who set himself ablaze in chemistry and gave me a cigarette.

I see him everywhere, and I mean EVERYWHERE. I swear a part of me thinks that he is stalking me, except that it’s me who keeps walking into him rather than the other way around. So maybe he thinks I’m stalking him.

And while we do keep running into each other, neither of us makes a point to try and make small talk. It mainly just consists of awkward hellos and a weak gawky smile from both ends as we pass in the corridor.

But there was something different about him today.

We were in History together and the teacher made us put our chairs in a circle. And why would you do that, some of you may be asking? Well of course it’s because having the class in a circle is more ‘unifying’, and in order to understand the past we must be unified in the present so that we won’t make the same mistakes in the future.

I shit you not. This is actually what we were told.

I don’t know what sort of ‘mushrooms’ they eat in their soup but I know that I want some.

 

Anyway, while we were learning about the Crimean war, or something like that, I spotted this Sherlock fellow on the far side of the ring of chairs. He was staring into the distance, a thousand miles from England, or Crimea for that matter. There was something different, something troubled in his expression.

Usually he walks around on his own but he never actually seems to be lonely. He smiles and waves to his fellow class mates, making small chit-chat, joining in on the odd joke, the same of the rest of us.

But that’s what we _all_ do. Like military camouflage, we use formalities and niceties to blend in to the crowd. But this doesn’t make us belong to anything. We function. We exist. And every day there are a thousand new things to drag us down to the depths of our own despair. But we put on our game face and carry on.

 

But it was in this moment when I found the boy behind the mask. His eyes were glazed and dark rings circled his eyes, made even darker in contrast to the gauntness of his long thin face. If I hadn’t met him before I would nearly have been afraid of him, or felt great pity for him, or both.  

Never breaking from his daze, his eyes moved minutely. They twitched, like they were scanning the pages of an invisible book, one of his own past, his own history, and his mouth furrowed like his eyes didn’t like what they were reading. I couldn’t help but lose myself in them.

Ha! Listen to me. I’ve only been here a few days and I’m already turning. But in all seriousness, there was something so…so… relatable about the way the weight of the world seemed to be pushing him further into the darkness of his mind.

 

In saying all of this, the guy could actually have been thinking about what was for dinner today, or if he had brought his laundry to the wash room on time.

I don’t know what he was thinking, but all I know is that he broke from his dreaming in an instant and his eyes came up and locked with mine.

The look we exchanged wasn’t cold but it felt like he had caught me with my pants down, and his expressions read the exact same back.

 

It’s strange how that one brief moment came to my mind when other more exciting things didn’t.

I just can’t stop thinking about what he said to me on the roof.

 

Fate

 

Who knows?

 

 

“Do not be afraid; our fate

Cannot be taken from us; it is a gift.”

― Dante Alighieri, Inferno

 

 

Until tomorrow.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A clash of personalities

14th September 2013                                                    11:07    

Day 7

Dear fucking diary

 

This place just baffles me. I mean, the longer I am here, the less I understand.

I can’t… I mean… I don’t even know where to begin. I just have to write everything down fresh at once before I lose any of it.

I better start from the beginning and hopefully my future self will remember everything in turn.

I better set up the scene before I explain.

Sundays are to become the new Saturday. Every Sunday after church the students are released into the wild for the day but they must return before 8pm although for the first week back they allow up to 11 pm.

Since I have just settled into the new system, my parents must have figured it wasn’t worth the long ride up after just 7 days. And because I have yet to establish a secure allegiance of confidants, I was doomed to spend the day entertaining myself.

So it all started when I was lying on my bed in the dorm reading my copy of The Catcher in the Rye, again, when a long dark shadow caught the corner of my eye. It stood looming in the doorframe but I pretended not to see it, for fear of having to start pointless small-talk with a stranger.  I was pretending to be absorbed in the book when a deep baritone pierced through the silence.

It made me jolt and shiver at the same time. Goosebumps spread like wildfire down my back and arms.

“No one has come for you either?”

It was Sherlock. When I saw him my heart grew warm and I tried to keep my lips from curling.

Maybe it was because he genuinely wanted to be my friend that made my heart leap. It has been such a long time since anyone has wanted to be around me by their own free will. Especially someone like him.

I kept my voice chilled and oblivious. “No, not today.”

He took a few long slow strides in the door and trailed his fingers along one of the rusted rungs of the ladder on my bunk bed, watching as redy-brown flicks twirl towards the ground.

“Mum and Dad went to Japan on Friday and my brother is usually too busy at Uni for me. Although he said he’s coming down to take me out next Sunday. That’s nice of him to take a day off from running every club and society in the university. Well, you know what they say about natural born leaders…” he trailed off, removing clumped rust from beneath his nails.

So I sat looking up at him, not knowing exactly what to say. A part of me wanted to know how much he knew already about me and another part wanted him never to find out.

“There isn’t really much to do around here.”

I suppose I was just filling the silence uselessly with ambiguous niceties. But he straightened up and walked right up to me.

“On the contrary, there are plenty of things to do on a Sunday in such a place. However most of those things involve some form of physical or mental exercising. As much as I don’t mind the excursion, I prefer to break a sweat under much different circumstances than playing soccer.”

And then he looked at me and scanned the length of my body with one eyebrow cocked. I didn’t know what to think. Did he just make a sexual innuendo?

So I shrugged my shoulders and met his gaze.

“So what are you going to do then?”

He rapped his fingers against the metal bars and smirked.

“I don’t know yet. I have explored every inch of this building and I have scavenged every acre of these grounds. So there are no more mysteries left for me in this place.”

I remember turning my eyes down to my cast out of awkwardness and detailing the now off-white and frayed rim that bounded my wrist. My hands were sweating and the book was slipping from my grip. I didn’t know what to say so I said nothing. What the hell could I say that didn’t sound like I was responding to his innuendo?

Why did I care that he had suggested that he prefers sex to soccer. To be honest lots of people prefer sex to soccer. But it’s very unlikely that he’s getting any in this place.

At the time I remember thinking that this must be why he likes going ‘exploring’ on Sundays, to get his ‘exercise’. He must have found some way of getting his rocks off and he’s inviting me into the secret. 

My brain connected all the dots and naturally there was a multitude of fireworks and party-poppers going off in my head with a banner saying “SEXY TIME” in big neon letters.

 

I was snapped back to reality as he continued speaking.

“But you, John Watson, probably haven’t stepped outside the front door since arriving.”

He pulled a pair of black gloves out of his coat pocket and slipped them on. 

“Fancy doing some exploring?”

Once he had said this, I was completely sold on the idea that this guy meets up with girls in the nearby village to ‘exercise’ with. So naturally I jumped at the opportunity. I threw down my book, donned by winter jacket and headed into wandering wilderness of The Mannor establishment.

I remember thinking ‘Hell to the Yes! I’m gonna get myself some.’

 

Oh how naïve I was to think that I would possibly be so lucky.

 

Ok. Now onto what actually happened in the woods.

 

It didn’t take long for us to escape the grounds of The Mannor and into the nearby forest. After a while I found myself climbing over large roots surrounded on all sides by huge gnarled trees. There was no paths and several times I nearly slipped into hidden puddles or over upturned trunks.

I had asked him several times where we were going but he only ever gave me vague ambiguous replies. After each answer a small niggling part of me thought that maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to run off into a secluded forest with a guy you know nothing about except that he is incredibly intelligent and the he likes to blow stuff up.

He stopped suddenly and looked out into an opening in the forest.  

He closed the distance between us until there were less than a foot between our shoulders and I could feel his eyes looking at my face to gauge my expression.

“Usually I come here on my own. But you don’t seem the sort to share other people’s secrets.”

I stayed silent as I scanned the spectacle before me.

It was a man-sized fort.

Three large sheets of dry-wood had been perched against the truck of a great oak tree in a large crude teepee.

The base and the roof of the man-made fort were lined with scraps of plastic sheeting which held pools of recent rainwater. Thick stumps were lined along the back into makeshift chairs with old pillows serving as cushions and a large wooden chest dressed with gold locks and straps peered out from under the covering of old towels which substituted a table.

It was like the unsophisticated tree-house I had ever seen.

“Did you make this?” I asked, a little disconcerted about the answer I was likely to receive.

“It didn’t take long. The large side panels were left behind after a company of wood-millers were left redundant in the middle of a job.”

He held out his hand and gestured towards the small hut in question.

“Care to join me?”

I was suddenly confused.

“Are we not going to the village?”

Sherlock’s eyebrows knitted together.

“Why would we be going to the village?”

For the first time since I meet the strange boy, he looked genuinely dumbfounded, like I had asked him to predict next week’s lottery numbers.

“F-for the ‘exercise’…” The more I spoke the less confident my words sounded.

“Well you can jog back to the school later on if it would make you feel better.”

So if we weren’t going to ‘pick up girls’ in the village then what were we doing here? I thought about the situation. My, Sherlock, alone in the woods with nothing but time to kill. And then I looked to his outstretched hand.

His face was bright and cheerful and a small pleased grin spread across his lips, like an Olympian showing off his trophy cabinet.

It was then I realised that I wasn’t afraid anymore. In fact, I wasn’t even nervous. I felt more relax in that moment than I have felt since before the accident. It was light a straightjacket had been unclasped and I could taste the freedom in my lungs. It sounds ridiculous but I cannot describe it more accurately.

So I walked into the surprisingly large fort and I settled on one of the pillowed tree trunks, leaning against the not-so-hard trunk of the oak. The pillow under me was softer than expected and I moulded myself into its plumpness.

Sherlock followed suite and plonked himself down only the other trunk, squirming for a minute before settling.

From the inside I could see that the dry-wood had been placed in an encompassing semi-circle, blocking out the wind but at the same time not breaking our view of the rest of the forest. It was dry and sheltered from the wind, which was a pleasant and unexpected surprise.

“This is actually really nice.” I said, relaxing a bit as I could feel the heat of our two bodies being trapped inside the fort.

“It only took a basic knowledge of engineering and architecture to figure out the best way to design such a structure.”

“And you have a basic knowledge of engineering and architecture?” I asked, throwing my legs out in front of me and crossing them at the ankles.

“I have a basic knowledge of everything that is useful to me.” He smiled and plucked his tattered cigarette packet from his pocket. His hand automatically reached out and with the majesty of an expert, flicked a single cigarette out and offered it to me.

So naturally I took it. He stretched out his hand and offered me a light too. I felt like a 50s flapper girl being pampered. All I needed was a feather boa.

So we sat in comfortable silence while the tepee filled with smoke. There was something very relaxing about the whole situation. While we were in silence I thought back to first meeting this strange lad that I’m now sharing cigarettes with. He had known about me being arrested and about being admitted to St. Matthews.

I was curious to know why.

“How did you figure it out?”

He looked up to me lazily, his eyes burning red from the smoke. “Figure out what?”

“About me? About me being arrested and going to St. Matthews?”

“I already told you that. The ligature marks on your wrist. It was clear as day.”

“But how could you possibly know that the mark wasn’t from a watch or just a cut from another time?

He smirked knowing right well that he was probably the smartest person in the area. I half expected him to pat me on the head and say ‘poor little stupid boy.’

But he didn’t.

 

“There was not one but several distinctive marks left on your arm from where you tried to pull it off. The first line just above the wrist indicated the edge of the band, while the second fainter line indicated the inner security reinforcement tag that is specific to St. Matthew’s hospital. As well as the bands, the buttons on the wristband was not the typical click-and-fold, but rather it was the smooth, oval twist-and-click buttons like an American football. That also gave it away. Had it been any other hospital you wouldn’t have had any problem ripping it off. And I wouldn’t have been able to define it. And because the marks were still visible on your wrist when you got here it is evident that you had only been recently and reluctantly admitted. Now ask yourself, ‘Why would a young man be admitted to a private and expensive psychiatric hospital only to resist with such forceful reluctance that he would try and pull the band off his arm in the struggle? The answer: because he knew he didn’t belong in such a place. You knew you weren’t sick and you resented the idea that your parents thought you were. This also tells us that something very big happened involving you in the last few weeks that required immediate psychological examination. Why would you be admitted to a psychiatric hospital if you’re not sick? Because you had to be formally recognised as having been institutionalised in order to avoid jail time. Q.E.D. Have I missed anything?”

I was simply astounded.

I couldn’t even begin to comprehend how he knew everything, with such detail and insight. Only because I have never met him before I could swear that he was reading it straight from the police records.

 

“How the flaming fuck did you know all that?”

He smirked devilishly, knowing the profound effect of his talents.

“I told you. I don’t just _know,_ I _observe._ I also know that the incident in question has something to do with a family member. And judging by your choice of reading material in the dorm, I would assume something happened to your younger sister. Am I right?”

 

This is where he crossed the line.

I began to feel a dull throbbing pressure build up in my temples and the all too familiar rumble of anger bubbling in my chest, down my arms and pulsing through my fingertips. I could almost feel the sinews in my neck protruding through my skin.  

Who the fuck does this guy think he is? Bearing all my personal problems out in the open like daytime tv trivia. The prick!

I held my breath and counted to ten in my head, trying to ease the heat of my temper. This short-circuit temper of mine is the sole reason I’m in this fucking place and I’ll be damned if it will be the reason I go to prison. It was ok when he was just figuring me out, but once he brought Harry in I was in a near volatile rage. I bunched my hands into white knuckled fists and concentrated very hard on my breathing.

I must have stirred something in Sherlock because when I looked back around his face actually shocked me out of my temper. His long face was snow white and his eyes had grown wide into saucers. They seemed soft and somehow filled with remorse. His jaw was ridged yet, for some reason, he didn’t seem afraid or even shocked by my sudden mood swing.

It was very strange to come so quickly down from such a raging high.

He straightened up and turned to face me directly. “I-I’m sorry, John. I didn’t mean to pry.”

It was the utter contrast between the severity of his predictions and the solemnness of his apology that caught me off guard.

My shoulders loosened and the swelling pain in my head drained down my face and neck.

“I am truly very sorry, John.”

The pain in his features was enough to sooth my anger and I smiled sheepishly to confirm my acceptance.

So after all of that, we sat in a semi-awkward silence smoking. I flicked the ash off the end of my fag and brought it back to my lips, taking a deep lungful of the bitter, life-consuming fumes. All I could think about was how the fuck he figured it all out. I could tell he was anxious because he began to claw at the skin of his nails, until the point where several of them were bleeding. He pulled one of the bleeding digits into his mouth and sucked the blood away.

And that is when I nearly lost it.  At the sight of his lips stretched around his finger, my chest tightened and another wave of goosebumps shot through my body. Even remembering it again now is making my skin crawl with nerves.

What the fuck is happening to me?

This guy is doing things to me that I can’t explain. I’m not gay! Never have been, never will be. So why did I almost get a boner just looking at him suck his long fingers with those beautifully plump lips…

Dammit!

Oh God. i need to sleep.

To cut a very long story short, we spent the rest of the day talking in the fort. Swapping stories about home, gossiping about teachers and Sherlock even gave me tips about where the best places are if you want time for yourself without the fear of someone walking in on you.

I hope he wasn’t refereeing to masturbating, because that would make all of my bodily reactions much less concealable.

*Sigh*

What i've written doesn't sound like much to anyone else. but it has changed a lot for me.

I better go.

It’s very late.

Didn’t realise how long I’ve been writing.

Won’t be able for the pre-dawn start.

 

This is one Delores told me before.

"Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them; that only creates sorrow."- 

Lao Tzu

 

 

until tomorrow 

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

19th September                                                                             9:43pm

Day 12

 

Dear Fucking Diary.

It has been 5 days since I last updated this.

The first five days I was here felt like 5 separate lifetimes. I would count the minutes as they ticked by on the clock and prayed every minuted that various natural or unnatural disasters would wipe the building clean off the map, of course counting that everyone was outside of the building first, I’m not a psychopath!

In comparison, the last 5 days have sailed by. It’s Friday again!

I suppose the most logical reason for this is because I am not spending so much time on my own. Gone is the hour where I would scuttle off to the dorm room alone and avoid eye contact with everyone I met.

I finally made some new friends.

And to be honest, I could cry with happiness.

And it is all thanks to that strange boy Sherlock, who it turns out is equally, if not more strange than I ever thought him to be. But there is something about the way he carries himself with such self-esteem and confidence which almost suggests that it is the rest of us, and not him, that is strange.   

He is quickly becoming the closest thing to a best friend in this place. We share more of the same classes, except I do woodwork and metalwork whereas he does music and art. We spend most of the free time we are given hanging around together too.

On Wednesday afternoon, he forged a note from the nurse to excuse him from ‘compulsory’ sport. The thing is the note paper the nurse uses is specifically pre-typed and comes in a little note paper book with over 100 notes in a book. It even had the school logo on it. I knew he wasn’t sick so I asked him how he got the note. He told me that he sometimes pickpockets the nurse when she is being, and I quote, ‘annoying’, and he proceeded to pull the notebook full of notes out of his pocket. He told me that when he first came here that a final year used to sell sick notes for favours, usually cigarettes. So when the last supplier left the school Sherlock took it on himself to keep the business going.

“That’s why I always have cigarettes, but alas I am forced to take part every few weeks, to stop the teachers from suspecting what is going on.” Sherlock boasted as he took the small book from his pocket. He offered me a note free of charge, but since I was still blessed with my cast, I had little use for it, for the time being anyway.

Since neither of us had to go to the sports pitch, and also because technically we had the rest of the day off as a result, we snuck off to the library.

Usually libraries are place of learning and intense study, but in The Mannor the large mahogany lined room is always empty and unattended by staff, the perfect place to disappear for an afternoon.

Sherlock reckons that the librarian is a recovering alcoholic and that the liquid that is used to preserve the older books knocks her off the wagon. I though he was just trying to bullshit me again until we both saw an almost empty bottle of cheap rum underneath her desk. I was left to listen to him boast about it for the rest of the day.

 

 

I have made another friend.

Go me.

His name is Greg and he was sent here all the way from Essex. He seems nice and friends, and he’s a decent enough guitar player. He is always willing to entertain us and he will play anything you ask him.

While it is great that I am meeting all these new people, the only problem is that apart from class the only place we can meet is in the dorm bedrooms at night.

I’m in Block C, Sherlock is in Block F and Greg is in Block J, so as you can imagine it is annoying to keep conversations going when you are shepherded away from each other as soon as classes have finished. Block J has the least amount of students in it so we usually end up in Greg’s room at night.

Sherlock bribed Jake, who had his bed in the furthest corner of the room, with 10 sick notes and a packet of cigarettes for Jake and Greg to swap beds. So now we have the corner all to ourselves.

No one minds the music for the most part, so it has worked out splendidly for everyone.

I don’t know Greg long enough to know why he is here, but judging by the funny yellow tint to his skin, I would say alcohol abuse and suspected liver damage.

He is a few years older than me but we are in the same year. He is gifted at woodwork, metalwork, basically anything to do with his hands! He builds fully functional beehives for the public and he sells them through the enterprise board in the school.

He told us that the great irony is that he is highly allergic to bees and that he wouldn’t be a huge fan of honey either. That’s like saying the Cocopops monkey was allergic to chocolate and he wasn’t too fond of puffed rice either!

I hope he makes a good career out of it. He would be wasted doing anything else.

Over the last few nights, Sherlock has been trying to explain how he comes to his predictions, or ‘deductions’ as he likes to call them.

When he explains this methods out loud they seem relatively simply however when he asked us to do the same, it was like trying to decipher the Da Vinci code in Arabic.

It all started when Sherlock made a ‘deduction’ about Greg and his latest sexual escapades by examining his right shirt collar. Naturally I presumed there to be lipstick or make up stains on the shirt, in a stereotypical fashion. When I saw there was not so much as a sweat stain on the collar of the shirt I laughed at the absurdity of Sherlock’s claim. It wasn’t until I saw Greg’s face turn an alarm shade of red that I suspected anything. I was sitting at the end of Greg’s new bed with my feet towards the pillow, mirroring Greg’s seated form, while Sherlock had dragged the mattress off the top bunk and laid it down on the floor.

At this remark, Greg drew his legs into his body, and rested his chin on his knees. I looked to Sherlock and back to Greg.

“Am I missing something?” I inquired, unsure what to expect in reply.

“Look again.” Sherlock pointed to Greg’s neck. The older lad made a playful lunge at Sherlock, revealing a deep purple bruise the size of a squash ball on the side of his neck, a circular imprint of teeth visible even from a distance.

“Fuck off!” I exclaimed, “-with who?”

Just as Greg was going to ruefully bash my question away, Sherlock shouts out at the top of his lungs:

“GREG LESTRADE HAS A HUGE LOVEBITE ON HIS NECK!”

Greg darted his eyes around the room to check for his roommates. On confirming that we were alone, he turned to face Sherlock so quickly I feared he had snapped his neck.

“Oh. He’s in this room, is he?.” Sherlock responded, smirking as he did so.

I stilled for a moment to evaluate the situation. I looked from Greg to Sherlock and back again, pointing a gesturing finger between the two of them.

They both laughed, Greg more weakly than the other.

“Not me, you pillock-” he shot, waving a dismissive hand to Greg, although Greg didn’t seem to relax any more at the suggestion.  

“-If it had been me on the receiving end of those powerful hips, I wouldn’t be able to walk.”

Once again, his face had turned an unnatural shade between deep red and purple.

Sherlock sat up from where he had been lying and pointed across the room.

“Who sleeps in that bunk over… there?”

I followed his finger and Greg’s face had almost turned florescent with embarrassment at this stage.

“Isn’t that Craig Wilson’s bunk? He’s the captain of the basketball team.”

I drew my eyebrows together and looked questioningly back to Greg, who by this time hand pulled his sweater up over his head, leaving a ‘headless horseman’-like figure seated at the top of the bed.

“Yes. Yes it is. Our dear Greg’s eyes went directly to the bunk of his last perpetrator. You know those sportsmen. They like to build up a sweat.”

Greg pulled the sweater from his face and shot daggers to the man on the floor.  

“Fuck you!” he sneered, throwing his pillow at Sherlock, who ‘ _oofed’_ in return.

“No, dear Gregory. Fuck you. Or Craig. Take your pick.”

At this, both Sherlock and I burst into an uncontrollable fit of laugher. We laughed so hard tears streamed down our faces. A sharp pain filled my chest and my lungs burned with the sensation.

 

I hope my future self will remember all of this. It was one of the first times in months, maybe years that I had felt truly alive. All the heartache, all the drama that had surrounded Harry’s accident had slipped from my mind for those few minutes. There was nothing in the world that could have stopped me from enjoying every second of the hilarity.

It’s amazing how quickly I have adapted to the idea that a lot of students in this institution are gay. Whether they were openly gay before they came here is a different matter. But for now, everyone seemed to be happier than I have ever seen a mass of young men before. All I know is that I was certainly enjoying the male company I kept in The Mannor more than I ever did at home.

Apart from Mike of course. Poor Mike.

It’s strange to think that the next person who is going to read this will know my future. They will know what happens to me tomorrow, and next week, and in five years’ time. They will know to the day when the next time I laugh so hard again will be, or when I will cry so hard it consumes me.  They will know when the best day of my life is coming, or if it has already passed and all that is left to continue on is pain.  

And that scares the shit out of me.

The next person to read this will know me. All of me. My past. My present. My future.

Because that next person will be a future version of myself.

A part of me wishes to know what is in stall for me, and another part wishes to never know.

Spoilers, eh?

To my future self.

Just remember how happy I am today. Hold that in your chest. Feel it warm and brighten the consuming cold and the darkness. And remember that it all started with a strange boy who burnt his eyebrows off in Chemistry.

 

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”

― Søren Kierkegaard

 

Until tomorrow.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein Mycroft comes to visit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone.  
> I apologise sincerely for the delay in this chapter.   
> I had a complicated few weeks and I am sorry that those of you who have been following along had to suffer form my delaying.   
> I hope to have one one every few days from now on. 
> 
> please comment your suggestions or critiques and ask me anything you might want to share.
> 
> Thank you for your support
> 
> AliceA

Sunday 21st September 2013                                                                                    8:24pm

Day 14

 

Dear Fucking Diary

Remember the good ol’ days when Saturday morning cartoon were the highlight of the weekend. They always made my weeks’ worth of school more rewarding. I remember not being able to sleep well Friday nights just thinking about the crazy, heart stopping adventures my favourite characters would get themselves into the following morning. The mere memory of my own excitement on those dark nights still gets my heart racing, even now as I write this. 

I remember crawling out of bed and sneaking past my parents’ bedroom on tiptoes like a master ninja with my heart in my throat, in the tremendous effort of trying not to wake them from their slumber. If I managed to reach the top of the staircase without hearing my mother yelling at me to go back to bed, I knew I had made it out of the tiger-pit safely.

Once the balls of my feet touched the top step, I would make an unmerciful dash down the stairs, undoing all the stealthy efforts of creeping past their bedroom door. It was incredible stupid now that I think about it!

Dash Adams was would start at 7:15 on Channel 12 and he quickly became my idol. Dash was the swash-buckling protagonist every boy wanted to be when they grew up and he made checkered red shirts and flared jeans super trendy in the early 90s. Every episode would start with Foxy May, Dash’s heavily breasted damsel in distress being kidnapped by the one and only villain, Master Zon, Dash’s arch nemesis, with every episode ending in Master Zon being handcuffed and sent to the world’s easiest prison to break out of.

I remember having recurring nightmares about Master Zon. In my nightmare I took the place of Foxy May and I would be strapped to a railway line in the pathway of a full speed locomotive with Dash Adams nowhere to be seen. Master Zon would stand over me cackling hysterically, his cloak billowing in the wind as the distant huffs of the train drew closer and closer to my restrained body. I get chills remembering his long grey face, sharp cheekbones protruding through the skin, his crooked nose and his huge black eyes.  

I had forgotten about those glorious morning of my youth and of the daunting, piercing blackness of those eyes. That is, until a few short hours ago.

That’s because today I met the human incarnate of Master Zon.

And his name is Mycroft Holmes.

It all started this morning as myself and Sherlock were walking beneath the heather arch at the porch of Church. He reminded me of what he had said the previous Sunday about his parents not being around to visit. He had said that his brother was to take time out of his very busy schedule to come visit him.

“I should be honoured, I suppose.” He continued, his words laced with sarcasm. I smirked at the thought of this mysterious Holmes brother and for some reason the image of a younger version of the Monopoly man came to mind.

“He sounds delightful” I echoed my friend’s sarcasm.

“Oh, he is rather delightful, in the same way as jumping into a bush full of thistles might be considered delightful. Besides, you can judge for yourself at dinner this afternoon.” Sherlock smirked and turned to gauge my reaction.

I met his gaze and cocked my eyebrow in response.

“That is if you would care to join me, I mean, us.” Sherlock stuttered before straightening himself to his full height.

I mulled the thought of spending my day off slouched on the bed, all day, on my own, and moaned a little.

“I’ll have to check my diary and let you know.” I replied smirking.

 _Maybe this Mycroft fellow won’t be so bad_ , I remember thinking to myself as we continued towards the main school building.   

“I’m sure you can postpone your date with Holden Caulfield. If it makes you feel any better you will be doing me a great service.”

“A service?” I asked curiously.

“Of course. You will serve as the perfect foil to balance out, or dull, if you will, the blazing sharpness of mine and Mycroft’s colliding intellects.” He had said as we passed out through the passage of the school yard.

Once I had riddled out the insult in his statement, I swatted his stomach with the back of my hand with one fast motion. We adjourned to our own rooms to gather ourselves for the day, leaving me to build up a brooding sense of dread at the inevitable meeting.

 

At 2:59pm I sat in the lobby next to Sherlock on an old sinking sofa idly fidgeting with the loose buttons on my shirt, half way between nauseous nervousness and violently shitting my pants in fear of the other brother.

“It has been so long since I’ve seen Mycroft that I’ve nearly forgotten what he looks like, although, I’m not sure I could ever really forget a face like his.” Sherlock’s mouth twisted into a half-snarl and he feigned a shiver amusingly. 

I smiled and shifted in my seat, trying to unravel the obvious tension that had built up in my muscles.

Sherlock reached around and place a reassuring hand on my shoulders.

“He’s not that bad, just don’t look him in the eyes or you’ll turn to stone.” He smirked, rubbing small circles with his fingertips absentmindedly.

Just then one of his fingers found a particularly sensitive spot just behind my shoulder blade and a spike of energy shot through me. My eyes widened and my mouth dropped open as small moan escaped my lips. With that my hand flew to my mouth and I clamped my lips together, praying  to the gods that he hadn’t hear it.

But of course he had heard.

And his mouth curled with amusement.    

My eyes darted back and forth between his lower lip and the floor as my brain tried to formulate an excuse, but it seemed that the gods had a different form of punishment to yet unleash upon me. As the old etched grandfather clock struck 3:00, the wide mahogany doors burst open and swung on their hinges in classical dramatic timing and style.

With the light of the afternoon sun behind him, Mycroft Holmes stood in the arch of the door, casting a long shadow across the stained marble floor.

Sherlock turned back to my awed and started form.

“Don’t think that delectable sound is going unnoticed. I hope to hear it again soon.” Sherlock winked and squeezed my shoulder once more before rising to his feet.

“Brother, dearest. You are 36 seconds late. You’re getting sloppy.” Sherlock greeted his older brother.

As I tried to shake the dumbfounded exhilarated gleam from my face I remember trying to figure out how Mycroft could be late, as he had entered on the first chime.

The round-cheeked Holmes brother twisted his face in repulsion, “The driver insisted on parking as far away as humanly possible from the entrance. That is the cost of human error, little brother.” He spoke, his voice finely tuned and diplomatic.

After re-evaluating my life for a few seconds in a state of paralytic shock, I urged myself up onto my feet and walked towards Mycroft and his darling brother.

I extended my arm to the tall suited man, “It is lovely to meet you.”

He looked down at my hand wearily before slowly slipping his own hand into my grasp. His grip was weak and flimsy, like an empty silk glove.

“Charming indeed. And who might you be?” he asked, cocking his eyebrows. I could see his lips twitching as he tried to prevent himself from grimacing at the touch.

“This is John Watson, a good friend of mine.” Sherlock gestured with an open palm, smiling as we made eye contact.

Mycroft’s eyes dropped to my feet and made their way up towards my face, scanning every inch of my body as they moved.

In light of the current situation and of the stark advancement Sherlock had just present to me, I realised that my face had set into a perpetual state of confusion. This doped expression didn’t go unnoticed. 

“Good. Mostly good. A few IQ points lower than average for your age. You probably should have been kept back a year in primary school. Could do being taller. Maybe you’ll have another growth spurt soon…” The older brother half-mumbled his immediate and completely unscientific analysis of me.

“You’ve done well for yourself Sherlock.” He continued. “Not your usual type, but an improvement nonetheless.”

I stood in shock as both brothers scrutinised my stance, one in admiration, one in dissatisfaction.

I remember just standing there thinking " _What the actual fuck just happened?"_ I don’t think an emoticon could more adequately capture the confusion, amazement and also offence that I felt all at once. 

“Pish, Mycroft. Behave yourself.” Sherlock swatted half-heartedly in his brother’s direction. Mycroft’s mouth formed a straight line across his face, “Much better than that last cetin you dragged home with you.

And all at once the humour had vaporised into the chilled air. It was in the way that their eyes met that indicated that Mycroft was very close to crossing a treacherous line.

The older brother cleared his throat and stood in acknowledging silence as his form of apology and half turned towards the door.

“I think we ought to go in order to make this reservation, don’t you think?” his eyes fell to the floor and he turned wordlessly and strode out the door, leaving myself and an obviously infuriated Sherlock in his wake.         

“A-are you-?” I started, unsure how to finish the statement, not knowing how close I too was to crossing that invisible line and breaking into new unspeakable grounds with my friend. He turned to face me and I could almost see the veins in his neck throbbing with rage.

“It’s nothing. Nothing at all. Let’s go. We don’t want to be late.” His voice was cool but there was something unsettling about how lax is response was.

However, it took less than 30 seconds for Sherlock’s breathing to return to normal. As we walked, his hand found its way to the small of my back and rested there.

I have taken it as a precaution not to question anything Sherlock does from this point onwards.

I’m rather enjoying this playful side of him.

Well fuck me and my delusions!

Anyway, we walked in a close, comfortable silence towards the most expensive looking student car I have ever seen in my life. I am not into my automobiles but I surely recognised the small sleek silver jaguar leaping up from the hood of the car.        

By the time we got to the car Mycroft had already inserted his Bluetooth earpiece and was immersed in his own conversations.

To say I was relieved that he was otherwise preoccupied would be a grand understatement.

The journey consisted of mostly friendly conversions with the driver, Matt, and muted conversations with Sherlock about all the places he had travelled to with his parents, before he ended up in the Mannor.

After what felt like an eternity, we finally arrived at the Black Rose hotel and I found myself feeling very ‘Lower’ class, very quickly. We were seated in a great hall style dining room. After a variety of breadsticks and a bowl of balsamic vinegar and parmesan had been centred on our magnificently set table, Mycroft snapped his phone case shut and placed it perfectly parallel to the edge of the table.   

“So tell me, John, what brings _you_ to the lovely delinquency establishment alongside my favourite brother?” He cleared his throat and intertwined his fingers.

I half turned to Sherlock, who had placed himself to my right. On seeing his smiling face I felt more assured in my response.

“I just got myself into some trouble… at home…”

This had been the first time I had ever explained my whole situation to someone out loud. The words that formed in my head sounded hauntingly like that of my assigned lawyer. They flashed behind my closed lids. Troubled… misuse… alternative solution… responsibility… recovery.

“I can see by the state of your front teeth that it was drugs rather than drink.” The older Holmes brother continued, tilting his head like a lion eyeing up a rather succulent-looking zebra.    

I rubbed the palms of my hands together in mild agitation and threaded my fingers together, mirroring the man before me.

“My _teeth?_ ” I asked with more irritation than curiosity in my voice.

Mycroft sat up straight and pulled at the lapels of his suit jacket, as a means of say ‘ _y’all gonna learn something today_.’     

“Your two front teeth are visibly chipped, not so much that it deforms your face but the trained eye can see that they are marginally shorter in relation to the rest of your teeth overall. This is because you are used to grinding your teeth and as you know alcohol abusers are less inclined to grind their teeth, but rather chip large chunk out against glass bottle necks and from hitting against hard surfaces inebriated. Most people on drugs will grind their molars, but you have managed not only to grind your molars and premolars, but you also managed to grind your central incisors. Of course that determines the immunity of your body to the strength of the drugs you consumed. You do not have any visible track marks at the inner joint of your elbow and a first timer isn’t so much inclined to inject between their toes initially; nor do your eyes, hair or reflexes reflect that of a _hardcore_ junkie, so it likely that all drugs you consumed were oral, through inhalation and/or pill form. How am I doing so far?”

He reached for a breadstick and, snapping it in two, dipped it into the brown/powdery mix, never breaking my gaze.

It was beginning to feel more like an interrogation rather than casual dinner talk and I could feel my temper beginning to simmer in the pit of my stomach. I pressed my back hard into the carved wood of the seat and squared my narrow shoulders. Out of habit I set my teeth and I scorned myself for drawing attention once again to my topical teeth. His lips curled patronisingly.

I relaxed my jaw and forced a smile.

“You seem to be quite confident in your own assumptions. Who am I to argue with them?” I answered, feeling the blood drain from my limbs and race towards my neck and face.

“If you know anything at all, you will know that, like Sherlock, I never _assume,_ I _know._ ”

The bustle of the busy dining room faded into the background as a burning glare passed between myself and Mycroft Holmes. Sherlock had been sitting in silence, waiting to see how both elements would react, not realising that he was about to witness a reaction more explosive than the one that cost him his eyebrows.

I could feel my temper begin to bubble and brew inside my expanding chest and my eyebrows furrowed. “I assure you, you do not know the half of it.”

I didn’t even care how cutting and seemingly over-the-top my reactions were. All I knew was that this jackass needed to be taken down a peg or two.

But of course, I never had a hope of competing with his raging intellect.

Mycroft shifted forward in his seat and smirked. He knew he had already beaten me and he was savouring the moments that would lead to the inevitable destruction of my self-worth. He became that image of Master Zon in my childhood nightmares in that moment. 

“I know that you are in the Mannor entirely by the consequence of your actions and your actions alone. You wear good clothes and you dress yourself well, meaning that you were raised in a loving, positive, self-affirming environment. If you were in foster care you would have been moved on to another family after your downfall, which is obvious because you are in a behaviour correctional facility, but your own family have no choice but to take the matter of your self-destruction into their own hands. You are in a top ranking rehabilitation education facility, if that doesn’t say caring family I don’t know what does! But if your family care so much about you, where are they today? More than I few weeks in and they have yet to visit? If you had overdosed, they would be here to check up on you, make sure their little boy was coping away from home. No, no you hurt someone and they cannot bear to look at you for what you did, not yet anyway. Someone close to you. A friend? Or maybe a family member-”

As a lightning bolt strikes a weather tower in a storm, my temper snapped and I shot to my feet, knocking the heavy chair I had been sitting on to the floor. The room stilled and my face burned with rage and fire. I clamped my teeth together in a futile effort to dull the ferocity of my frenzy.

But I never spoke. I didn’t open my mouth. I didn’t trust myself to keep my fiery words to myself.

Sherlock, who had been on the edge of his seat during all of this shot up and grabbed my clenched fist with one hand and curled his other arm around my back, pulling me closer to him. He leaned down and whispered so softly into my right ear that the pounding in my ears drowned out his words.

All I could feel was the fire in my veins and I was blinded by my rage. My peripheries faded to white and my whole body began to tremble.

Before I knew it I was being escorted out of the dining hall and I was startled from my daze by the sharp autumn breeze. I was lowered to the ground and my coccyx collided hard with the stone steps we had climbed up less than an hour before.

Once seated, an overwhelming despair swelled inside my chest and I began to whimper noiselessly into my open palms, tears streaming down my face. I felt Sherlock sit down next to me and he wrapped his long spidery arms around my hunched frame.

“It’s ok, love-” he whispered, “-we''ll head back soon. I should have known he would try something like that. I’m sorry I put you through this.” He leaned his head on my shoulder and suddenly a wave of guilt washed over me. I straightened up and looked to him with my big red eyes and wet face.

“What have you to be sorry about? I’m the one acting like a spoiled brat!” I croaked out rather feebly and smiled.

“It’s just- you know- Mycroft can be so- so- and I can’t do anything to-” Sherlock began to stutter, throwing his arms into the air and clutching at inviable stress balls.

It was right then that I knew that this strange boy was the best thing that could have happened to me and I threw my arms around his unsuspecting form. He stilled momentarily, and then softened to the touch before reaching his arm around and returning my embrace.

I have no idea how long we sat like this but it wasn’t long before we left the Black Rose hotel in a taxi and were back at the front door of the Mannor.  It wasn’t until after that I realised that Mycroft would have had to pay the bill for the taxi back, and after me being so rude to him.

And here I am now.

So as I sit here writing this I vow to apologise formally to Mycroft.

But in fairness, he was a complete dickhead. So it kind of balances out.  

And as for Sherlock? We will see how this turns out.

Before we parted for the night he said that he's looking forward to hearing that moan again. 

I have no idea what to think anymore.

I think I might have an early night. It has been a particularly stressful day.

Until tomorrow I leave you with this.

“…pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, raze out the written troubles of the brain, and with some sweet oblivious antidote cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff which weighs upon her heart.”- William Shakespeare, Macbeth.


End file.
